


Don’t try this at home

by FLWhite, zetaophiuchi (ryuujitsu)



Category: SKAM (France), SKAM (TV) RPF
Genre: Banter, Don't Try This At Home, M/M, Marshmallows, RPF, Social Media, fan interactions, food challenges, maxel, silliness, two idiots one ramen, unresolved spicy tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 09:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19354030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuujitsu/pseuds/zetaophiuchi
Summary: The Maxel companion (?) to "so are you to my thoughts as food to life," our joint series of Elu slice-of-life food-centric stories. More chaos; less common sense.





	1. poulet núcleaire

 

It’s an impressive haul, Axel’s latest batch of fan mail. Forget hiding Ouba in the plastic bin (barely) containing the packages and envelopes from spilling all over the parquet; Axel himself could easily fit into the bin, with ample space for a pillow for his head. There’s something weird about that image, so Maxence tries to push it away as he lets his eyes roam over the colorful array. Then he jolts with recognition and reaches for one of the envelopes that Axel’s already opened, with its contents resting atop the brown paper.

“Oh shit. _Shit_.”

Axel looks immediately up at him, brow wrinkled. “What?”

“That’s the crazy shit. The crazy chicken noodles.”

“Oh, this is supposed to be a chicken, this...creature?” Axel turns the little red-and-black cellophane package over a couple of times, squinting at the cartoon mascot. “It’s in a...tutu?”

“Are you serious right now?” Maxence, his mouth an O of only half-exaggerated shock, puts a hand on Axel’s shoulder, holds him at arm’s length. “You don’t know about the hot chicken noodles?”

“ _The_ hot chicken noodles?” Axel’s brow wrinkles again, but this time, his mouth skews skeptically upward at one corner.

*

A quarter-hour of Youtubing later, Axel leans back on the couch with a rustle. He taps the pause button on his laptop with a socked toe, then plops both feet onto the low table beside it. They are in rainbow-striped socks with individual toes and what look like tiny rubber dots on their bottoms—the sort that toddlers maybe have on the soles of their shoes. At Maxence’s raised eyebrow, he says, “From some other Koreans. They’re really comfortable!”

“I see.”

It’s Axel turn to raise an eyebrow at Maxence. “So we’re going to do it, right?”

“We? Do?” He blinks, swallows. “Do, uh?”

“One of these reaction things.” Axel gestures at the screensaver: a slideshow of photos of Ouba in various adorable sleeping poses. “No?”

“But—” he clears his throat, not wanting to sound weird about it. “But I thought you weren’t into lives.” He clears his throat again. “They _do_ get kind of intense sometimes. Like, a lot of people get on there and are just, you know.”

“Well, yeah, I’ve watched yours. But this would be real quick.” Axel lifts his chin at the packet of noodles, which still lurks, glinting scarlet in the dusky light filtering through the half-opened windows, on the envelope. “None of these videos was over what, ten minutes?”

“Well, no, you fast-forwarded on that one that was like half an hour.” Maxence shakes his head. “I know you don’t do the World Wide Web, but there’s no fast-forwarding on livestreams, Grandpa.”

Axel glares. “Those people were doing a whole pack each. _Half_ a bag of instant noodles is not going to take me a _half hour_ to eat.” He gets up and retrieves the packet, then pads toward the kitchen, the rubber dots on his socks squeaking slightly.

As Maxence catches up, he says, “I thought you said your mom doesn’t do spicy.”

“Tajine is like her favorite food!” Axel has unfolded a stepstool and is rummaging in an overhead cabinet.

“ _Spicy_ , Axel. No, really.” He is starting, for whatever dumb reason, to feel nervous; his belly is warm and unsettled, though Axel’s not even opened the packet of noodles yet. “Did you actually _watch_ any of those videos? This stuff is _fucking_ _crazy_.” When this provokes no reaction except a roll of Axel’s eyes, he tries again. “Maybe we should go up to my place? I think people are, uh, used to lives from there.”

“Is it even possible to get across your floor without faceplanting right now? I don’t want to break my neck just trying to find a place to sit.”

“I just cleaned ‘cos Estrella and Ardi are coming tomorrow morning to do the floorboards and the bathroom. Come on, come on.” He snatches the packet from the counter, his shoes from the floor beside the rack of Axel’s footwear, and begins to unlatch the apartment door.

*

This is not a very good idea, he finally admits to himself as he clicks his phone into place atop the little folding tripod set up in its usual place under the window opposite the round mirror. Axel, sitting on the rug with his legs crossed, makes a face at the camera. Before him, on the bench they’re using as a dining table, the package of noodles, divided into two white bowls,  practically glows under a heavy layer of crimson oil. Between the bowls stands the liter of milk Axel had returned downstairs to fetch, its thick glass becomingly beaded with condensation.

Maxence feels like he can hear the noodles hissing. “Haven’t started the stream yet,” he says.

“Come on, let’s get it over with already.” Axel suddenly begins to pull his hoodie overhead; muffled, he continues. “Maybe we should get like, the garbage can and some tissues too.”

For a moment, a spear of skin a couple of shades paler than Axel’s arms and legs flashes under the hem of the T-shirt Axel has on under the hoodie. To distract himself from the sight, Maxence laughs, “Oh, you’re getting worried now?”

“No,” Axel returns, sticking out his tongue. “They’d be just for _you_. I _love_ spicy shit. You, on the other hand, are _going down_.” He taps the bottle. “Get ready to enjoy chugging all this one-hundred-percent grass-fed full-cream goodness.”

He pretends to drop-kick the half-empty box of tissues at Axel, who snorts, catching them and putting them next to the milk. “Just try to leave some for me after you crack that lid open.”

*

Pain is not a complete novelty to him. The road rash from when he fell off Grégory’s longboard in _quatrième_ that healed almost invisibly. The burns from the first time he cooked in a cast-iron skillet. Allowing his wisdom teeth to be one by one extracted even before they’d appeared. The stress fracture on his foot that was caught early and slapped into an air cast practically the same day it happened. But _that_ had still been terrible, because he had had to hobble all the way to SKAM callbacks on that cast.

He’s almost, _almost_ regretting getting that callback, at this moment. He’s almost regretting the last two years of his life, really.

Because this is very bad. Very, very bad. He takes another two tissues from the box, hard enough that the carton nearly tips over the lip of the bench, and dabs at his sticky forehead and temples and nose, careful to avoid his swollen, stinging, positively throbbing lips, through which he is drawing breath frantically. A line of sweat slides through the stubble at his temples and pauses just long enough on the point of his chin for him to mop it up with the tissues. He peers to his right through teary eyes, trying not to sniffle.

Axel slumps backward against the wall like his spine has turned to jelly. His face is so craned to the ceiling that he resembles the portrait of some especially agonized martyr. Both hands are white-knuckled around the nearest leg of the bench. The last time Maxence looked, Axel had been the catastrophic paper-pale of a vampire’s victim. Apparently the vampire decided the blood was supar, though, and has disgorged it all back into Axel, but only his face and neck, which are nearly as bright red as the noodles had been.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Axel whispers, as he’s been doing for who knows how long. He kicks his heels against the floor again, then slaps it with one palm for good measure. “Fuck. Fuck.” Then he begins to hiccup, rapidly. “Fuck. Maxe. Shut the. Shut that. Stop it.”

Maxence tries to say _what_ , but his tongue has long ago turned against him. “Whirr?”

“That. Fuck. Stop that.” The effort of pointing at Maxence’s phone, still recording, is apparently exhausting enough in this condition that Axel can no longer keep himself fully upright. He tips forward onto the bench, pressing his cheek firmly into it, and quivers, the hiccups unabating.

“Shrink—sink—drink it,” Maxence manages, as the room gently twirls about him. He reaches out almost at random, closes his hand around Axel’s bare upper arm, just above the elbow, and squeezes hard. It’s nice to have something to do other than thinking about what feels like lava filling his throat.  “Ashel. Jut dink it. Ashel!”

Axel shakes his head fervently and jabs an unsteady finger in Maxence’s direction.

They enter a second period of silence, punctuated by their harsh breathing. This one’s far more painful than the first, during which they had been slurping up the noodles. Eagerly. _Like actual idiots_. He still has his hand around Axel’s arm, and so can feel the tremors that rock Axel’s entire frame growing stronger. It’s clear what needs to be done. He swipes weakly at the bottle of milk, but Axel bumps him with a shoulder. “Off. Off. Turn off. Phone.”

He tries to get up once, twice, then gives up and crawls over to the tripod on hands and knees. At this distance, even the tears clouding his vision can’t prevent him from catching a glimpse of the chat log, flashing frantically just shy of ten thousand viewers, a record by far. He tries to keep his face out of the frame.

 

Pretty_babyyyy: _omg call an ambulance_

~cutepetersburg~: они мертвы?! ☠☠☠😱

매운❤병아리: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Pretty_babyyyy: _omgggggggg maxence say smth call 911_

terrien_en_detresse: _c’est 112, connards americains_

finefrøkner19: _is it creepy that I still think he looks gorgeous_

phandangogogo: _dude wtf his face is fucking melting this some raiders of the lost ark shit_

phandangogogo: _get help_

매운❤병아리: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

phandangogogo: _Axel call your mom_

Pretty_babyyyy: _a hand i see a hand!!!_

 

Four attempts later, his thumb finally makes contact with the small white X in the upper right-hand corner, the video screen freezes and closes, and he falls back onto his haunches, panting so hard that he nearly chokes as he allows himself to breathe again.

He’s afraid to turn around. Axel sounds like he’s sobbing, and truly that would be it, that would be the most final of straws. Axel broken with tears, bent double over his bench; that’d be a rend in the fabric of the universe, a rip in space-time, a portal to the seventeenth dimension; it would mean that anything was possible.

But Axel is instead staring up at him like a zombie tomato. A rather sweaty zombie tomato. A rather cute, sweaty zombie tomato with very chaotic hair. “Off?” At Maxence’s feeble nod, he drops his face flat onto the bench and lets out a noise that hovers a little too close to “orgasmic groan” for Maxence’s comfort. Then another. “Fuck, _fuck_.”

There’s nothing for it. This has to end. He fumbles at the charming red seal over the bottle’s lid; the bottle itself, wet under his other hand, refuses to stay put and give him the leverage he needs. Axel raises his eyes to watch; behind the torment, there’s a definite spark of triumph. Not for the first time, Maxence thinks: _this man is dangerous_.

“Giving up,” Axel murmurs. His smile is pretty much indistinguishable from a rictus of pain.

He doesn’t mean to drink so fast, nor so deeply, but once the lid’s off it’s as though his body’s possessed by sheer, instinctual self-preservation; he swallows, swallows again, wipes his still-sore lips gingerly with the back of a hand. _Yeah, but only so you don’t die right here on my floor_ , he would like to say.

Instead, he suffers an eye-watering burp and thrusts the bottle at Axel, who takes it so quickly that Maxence hasn’t the time to let go. With their four hands holding the glass steady, Axel tilts his head back and pours the milk in an unbroken stream down his throat. His fingertips dig a little into the backs of Maxence’s hands. Against the sting that still pulses on Maxence’s tongue and the ominous heat in his gut, though, the pressure is nothing. He watches Axel’s eyes flutter shut.

No. It’s nothing.

*

The comments, when he finally has the wherewithal to look at them after Axel has (refusing any assistance) limped back downstairs, are even more surreal than usual.

 **spiralbound** Can’t believe I need to make this #PSA but _don’t send your faves toxic “food”!_ How could you?! Whoever did that should be ashamed of themselves. #WTF

 **7h ago** **176 likes**

 

 **dubble_trubble** um @spiralbound they eat this in korea dont be xenophobic #educateyourself

 **7h ago** **155 likes**

 

 **Gabriellehyoong** @dubble_trubble @spiralbound i’m south korean and this type of noodle is really not everyday food!!! so i think you should have warned them

 **6h ago** **89 likes**

 

 **finefrøkner19** guys please I’m sure they googled it, they’re adults, not idiots 🙄

 **6h ago** **201 likes**

 

 _Right_ , thinks Maxence, taking a screen capture and sending it to Axel with a neon-green circle drawn around “adults, not idiots.” _Right, but also very wrong._ He puts a second sugar cube on his tongue and shuts his eyes.


	2. Chubby Bunny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will never be free. I literally stopped on the sidewalk on the way home tonight and said, “Oh, God damn it,” as this idea arrived. And then I groaned. 
> 
> Shoutout to [jollylightgothspy](https://jollylightgothspy.tumblr.com/) for egging me on, to [FLWhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite) for writing snippets of Maxel ice cream fic at me during the day, and to Monsieur MDF for being the biggest Maxel shipper of us all. <3
> 
>  
> 
> <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chubby%20Bunny>

They go back to Axel’s place after EIL4—the new place. Maxence doesn't understand why Axel's so excited: he's visited before, climbed up into the loft and skidded across the bare floors in his socks. He can't imagine the apartment has changed much in the last two weeks. Oh, but it has, Axel says merrily. Now— _now_ , Axel says, practically sparkling—now there aren’t any boxes. Now it really feels like home, and everything’s unpacked. 

Almost everything. In the entryway, just past Axel’s hoard of colorful, puffy sneakers and below the stairs to the loft, sits an enormous cardboard box.

“I thought you said,” Maxence says, and stops. They’ve had a few drinks, or rather, Axel’s had a few, and Maxence has had considerably more. He squints. “I thought you...liar. You’re not unpacked at all.”

“What, this?” Axel says. “It’s my gift box. Fan stuff from Season Three.” He plunges his hand into the box up to the elbow and straightens up brandishing a small pillow, or a plastic sack of oversized foam packing peanuts. “Look! From America.”

Jet-Puffed Jumbo Mallows, the label says.

“Eurgh,” Maxence mutters. He’s been gifted marshmallows before—real marshmallows, proper French ones from _Blé Sucré_ , cut neatly into soft cubes, one packet fragrant with rosewater, the second infused with orange blossom, the third radiating sweet, warm vanilla. He couldn’t eat them all, of course, so he brought the rest to his agency; he was popular that day, especially with the receptionists. “Aren’t they stale? Why are you keeping them?”

“I saw this thing on YouTube,” Axel says blithely, and that’s how they end up on the couch twenty minutes later, convulsing with laughter as Maxence tries to jam another jet-puffed jumbo marshmallow between his teeth. 

He’s lost count of how many are in there, but it feels like a lot. He feels—stretched. He feels like he might be on the verge of ruin. He wants to ask Axel if Axel thinks it’s possible to destroy the elasticity of one’s face with such antics, but all he can manage is a wet splutter around the sticky, spongy mass in his mouth. 

“Shubby wunny,” he says finally, and Axel writhes in delight and pounds the couch with his fists.

“Tha dun’t coun’,” Axel says. He fishes another marshmallow out of the bag and crams it in. “’Ennn,” he crows, which Maxence takes to mean _Ten_ , but that can’t possibly be right. “Shubby bunny.”

“’Uck,” Maxence groans. _You’re cheating_ , he tries to say, _you’re eating them, aren’t you, you're_ swallowing  _them_ , but the only noise that fights its way past the marshmallow wall is a long, thin _eee_.  

They took two selfies for their friends and posted three stories to Instagram. _Stop covering your face_ , Axel had said indignantly; two marshmallows in, he could still talk clearly, and Maxence was still able to hide his bulging cheeks with one hand.

He can’t hide anything now, and they’re not filming anymore, either. They’re concentrating. 

 _Fuck_ , Maxence says. “’Uck!” 

Axel cackles, soundlessly, doubling over, and silver threads of sugar and spit dangle from his parted lips.

Grimly, Maxence grabs a marshmallow. This one may kill him, he thinks, and he squeezes the marshmallow in his fist until he flattens it, and then he folds it in half and shoves it behind his front teeth.

“’Ubby ’unny,” he says.

Axel swipes uselessly at his mouth, spreading glistening slick everywhere. He selects two marshmallows and holds them up, one in each hand.

 _No!_ Maxence shakes his head.

 _Yes!_ Axel nods, vehemently. He slides them in at the same time, his lips comically, almost grotesquely stretched. 

“ _Unneeee_ ,” he declares, and his cheeks bulge, and he looks at Maxence with his eyes gleaming and spittle bright on his chin, flushed, triumphant, the proudest chipmunk in all of Paris, and Maxence sucks air desperately in through his nostrils and bites his lips and—

“ _Ha_!” Maxence shouts. Chunks of white, shining, half-dissolved marshmallow spatter the floor between his feet. Axel is giggling, too, helplessly, and Maxence realizes for the fourth or fifth time how drunk they are; he would never have agreed to this, otherwise, and Axel would never have let him spackle his brand new apartment floor with beery bits of marshmallow. The thought of sober Axel and the screech he’d let out sets Maxence off again; he spits the remaining glob of marshmallow into his hands and laughs until he’s almost sobbing. “Your face, your face, fuck, _your face_ ,” he says, between bursts, “oh, fuck. Axel, fuck!”

“ _Uuee unee_ ,” Axel says, with steely determination. He reaches toward the bag of marshmallows again.

Maxence grabs his wrist and holds it.

“No more, please, I beg you,” he says. “No more. I’m going to die, oh my God,” and then his laughter-weakened fingers slide away from Axel’s wrist, and he falls sideways into the couch and _wheezes_.

“You okay?” Axel says, very clearly, and Maxence opens his eyes in time to see Axel bent over one arm of the couch, disgorging a lump of marshmallow into the wastebasket. He sits up, wiping his lips daintily with the edge of his sleeve. "Maxence?"

Maxence nods. He wobbles to his feet and goes to wash his hands and rinse the sugar from his tongue.

Axel trails after him and lingers in the doorway, arms crossed, as Maxence swishes and spits, swishes and spits. The bag of marshmallows dangles from his left hand. He meets Maxence's stare dead on, extracts another marshmallow, and eats it. And grins.

“That’s it,” Maxence says faintly. “Give me your phone. I’m deleting the YouTube app.”

“What?” Axel demands, in mock outrage. "Why?"

“Apocalyptically spicy ramen and now this,” Maxence says. “The next thing you see on YouTube is going to kill us.”

“Hey,” Axel says. “If we survived the ramen, we can survive anything.”

“We could have choked to death,” Maxence says.

“No way,” Axel says. 

“Fine,” Maxence says. “ _I_ could have choked to death. My mouth isn’t as big as yours.”

“Your mouth isn’t as _awesome_ as mine,” Axel says. “And if you choked I would have saved you. I know the Heimlich maneuver.”

“You do not.” 

“I do,” Axel insists. “Don’t you?” He steps into the bathroom and wraps his arms around Maxence's waist, marshmallows and all. “It’s simple,” he says. “You just…”

He held Axel like this, Maxence thinks, on the scooter yesterday—loosely at first, then for dear life, as they sped between cars and bounced around a roundabout, his chin digging into Axel’s shoulder, his helmet knocking against Axel’s helmet, palms sweating and slipping, lips pressed together. They'd collapsed in the grass afterward, and while Xavier took their photos and Paul and Assa laughed and joked, Axel curled against him and let Maxence run his fingers through his hair. He'd talked to Maxence the way Lucas would to Eliott, low and sweet and marshmallow-soft.

He can’t even see Axel in the mirror right now, but he can feel the warmth of Axel’s cheek between his shoulder blades. He looks down at Axel’s clasped hands, centered just below his chest.

“You just, you know,” Axel says, and he gives Maxence a gentle little squeeze.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you as ever for reading! Please leave us a note and let us know what you think. If you enjoyed this, do check out our other SKAMFr and Maxel works.


End file.
